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Article: Confessions of a credit card surfer. (switching credit cards to get lower rates; includes a related article on financial traps to avoid when changing cards)
- Article from:
- Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine
- Article date:
- February 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Our monthly balance was creeping higher and higher. Interest charges were killing us. Then I had an idea...
It all started with my "dowry"--my husband Ray's word for the $50 credit card bill from Kaufmann's department store in Pittsburgh that I brought to our marriage 25 years ago. Kaufmann's promptly changed the account from my name to Ray's, but that's another story. This story is about a quarter-century of creeping credit card debt, the guilt, that accompanies it, and the search for the cheapest way to remain continually in debt.
I received my first credit card--we called them "charge plates" then--shortly after graduating from college, and it felt as ...